


Five Days of Consumables

by heliocentrics



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Bendemption, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Implied Voyeurism, Masturbation, Memories, More tags coming later, Mutiny, Past Abuse, Snoke is mentioned - Freeform, Starvation, TIE Silencer, rey comes in later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-02 08:32:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heliocentrics/pseuds/heliocentrics
Summary: Kylo Ren escapes the First Order. He has five days to find a destination.





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by new specs on Kylo’s TIE Silencer, posted by sleemo on twitter (https://twitter.com/sleemo_/status/1145718428331892737?s=21) so shoutout out to her for bringing it to twitter’s attention and making me sad enough to write a whole fic about it. I’m hoping to update daily (in real time) and have the whole thing done by the end of the week. This is also unbetaed (and barely skimmed for corrections) so apologies for any mistakes. Thanks for reading!!!

The door to the _Silencer_ shuts behind him with an angry _whizz_.

He can’t remember what made him decide to bring his ship to the raid on Kijimi, what spurred him to survey the progress of his troops from the sky. He’d landed eventually, realizing his ship’s laser cannons were superfluous for a mission of such small magnitude, and paid silent witness to the burning of the Thieves’ Quarter, men and women and children dragged out of their homes as troopers salvaged the valuables for the First Order’s consumption and torched the buildings with flamethrowers. Children crying, their faces marked with soot, others quiet, immobile, only watching as stormtroopers moved from one house to the next. 

But now, as he settles himself in the command chair and punches in the coordinates to the nearest hyperlane, he’s glad he made the decision last minute. The ship’s shields rise automatically as the engine purrs to life, deflecting the blaster shots still peppering the _Silencer’s_ wings and exhaust ports from the rear. As he rises from the forest he’d parked in, an early systems report shows him damage to the left blaster cannons, and then the right, as the blaster bolts from below find their target. He still has the cannons attached to the underside of his ship, but by this point it’s useless to turn around, to fight back. All he can do is run. 

And he does, catapulting himself out of the planet’s chilly atmosphere and into the cold void of the surrounding space. Kimiji orbits a dying star millions of klicks away, so far that even at high noon the sky is dark. There’s two moons circling the planet, but Kylo figures that’s the first place any First Order flyers will check for him. No, he has to leave now, no matter the cost.

As if on cue, two TIE fighters follow him from a rendezvous point a few klicks away from the area of his departure, trailing him through the outer layers of the planet’s atmosphere. He doesn’t have time for a dogfight—his head’s still spinning from what had happened on the surface—so he quickly swings around and takes out the starfighters with a few quick blasts from the underside cannons, facing away from the planet again before the ship debris can scratch his viewport. The gravity in the cockpit presses down at the motion, pushing him against the seat. The blaster wound at his calf cries in protest, pain shocking through his system; he bites his tongue to keep it together.

He can’t go back to the _Finalizer_ ; he knows that much now. He has no friends left in the Order. If the Knights can turn against him, obstruct his will as Supreme Leader, he’s as good as dead to anyone else there. No, he can’t go back. 

The hyperlane approaches on his right; he makes the turn and, when he’s close enough, engages the hyperdrive. The stars around him warp and stretch in the viewport and, when they begin to twist in a current of blues and blacks, the _Silencer_ enters hyperspace.

The engine _beep_ s its assent, relaxing as the hyperdrive takes over, humming happily. Kylo sits back in his chair, finally letting himself take a breath, take his shaking hands off of the controls. He lets himself think.

What just happened?

What has he done?

He’s a fugitive now, that much he can confirm. He’s done with the First Order, with the little empire they’ve created, slowly sinking its hands into the Galaxy. There are few places he can go where he’ll be unrecognizable, where he’ll be safe. He rakes a trembling hand through his hair, takes a shallow breath.

Kylo has to take stock first, give himself a time frame. He can’t live in the _Silencer_ forever; he assumes the ship was fully fueled when he took off from the _Finalizer_ , which gives him a standard month or so of flying time, but he’s never checked the life support systems, consumables drawer. Never needed them. But he figures giving himself a time frame is easier than answering the question of _what now_. It’s more distracting, counting the days than deciding what comes next. 

First he pulls up the controls and manually disables the tracker he knows is installed on all First Order ships. He’s without an astromech, so bypassing the ship’s mainframe takes longer than he would have anticipated, but it gets done. Then he roots around for medical supplies to try and mend his leg. The back drawers are laden with repair tools, spare blasters, a few discarded lightsaber parts. In the bottom container, Kylo finds a basic first aid kit, still sealed shut and dusty from disuse. He pulls it out, pulling off the lid to find little more than some bacta patches, a small bottle of spray-bandage, and a few critical-strength pain relievers. Not the medpack he was expecting, but he could make do. 

He sets to work on his leg, discarding his boot and pulling up his pant leg with a hiss of pain to reveal an angry red wound. Downing some of the pain reliever, he applies the bacta patch with a practiced hand—Snoke had never let him use bacta, had always told Kylo that scars force a man to remember his mistakes, but he remembers easily enough from his time at his uncle’s makeshift praxeum. He’d practiced the movements in his mind as he let battle scars heal naturally on board the _Finalizer,_ the _Supremacy_ , as if the idea of it alone would make him feel better.

It never did.

The patch applies seamlessly, the bacta seeping in just as the relievers kick in. Kylo sits back, relaxing against the headrest, letting the pain slowly slip away. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, reveling in a feeling of relief so deep he only remembers experiencing it as Ben Solo. But eventually, just as he feels his adrenaline washing away, replaced by a growing fatigue, he knows he has one more thing to check.

The consumables drawer is full, but unlocked, still slightly ajar from his earlier rummaging. He yanks it open with a grunt, finding a variety of foodstuffs—mostly protein cubes and polystarch packets—counting each one to tally up his time.

Five days.

Five days of consumables.

He does a second count, and then a third, making sure he’s got the numbers right. He sits back again, eyes roving over the open drawer, doing mental tallies. He might be able to push it to six or seven days, if he rations the protein cubes or skips a meal or two. _It won’t be easy_ , he thinks to himself. _But it’ll be easier than landing in hostile territory, trying to eke out a few more days of survival while hiding from everyone who knows who you really are._

He tries to imagine finding a neutral planet, one where he can disappear, _one like Jakku_ , but it doesn’t come to him. His imagination is either too exhausted or too pragmatic to give him the illusion of peace. He can hardly imagine himself hiding away for the rest of his days—even if it’s what he wants. There’s just someone missing in that picture.

No, death would be easier than living with himself, Kylo thinks. There’s too much to pare and parse through. He’s not even sure he can go five days living with nothing but himself, a lifetime of regrettable actions weighing down on him. He takes a protein cube from the drawer and pushes it close, unwrapping it carefully as he thinks on that. _Five days. Five days to live, or five days to die_. 

The cube tastes bland in his mouth, and he almost spits it out. After a few tentative chews, he swallows it in the name of survival, downing the rest in a painful matter of minutes. But it works.

That same fatigue brushes the edges of his consciousness, willing him to sleep, even for a few hours. After double checking the hyperspace coordinates—his end destination halfway across the galaxy, a trip that would take him a month if completed—and ensuring the tracker is still off, he sits back and closes his eyes, willing his mind to still. Just as he’s drifting off to sleep in the pilot’s seat, he feels a prod in the back of his mind.

 _Rey_ , he realizes. 

He jolts up with a start, concentrating on reaching back out to her, floundering in his own mind like a drowning man reaching for a buoy. It’s the first time he’s felt _anything_ from her in a year, even longer. But she’s already gone—maybe she was never really there. 

It gives him an thought, though. Just the beginning of an idea.

Of what to do.

Of where to go next.

And when he finally gives in to sleep, letting his body rest, he lets his mind rest, too. The mental defenses drop down for the first time in a long time. If she’s out there, looking for him, she’ll find him, he thinks. But only when she’s ready.

He just hopes that’s sooner rather than later.


	2. Day Two

He’s awoken—maybe minutes, maybe hours later—to that same sensation, a feather-light brush, even lighter than before, against his consciousness. 

It rouses him quickly enough, jolting him into an upright position. But just as before, it vanishes from his mind almost as soon as he can recognize it. 

Kylo lets himself ruminate on the sensation for a moment, maybe two, relishing the feeling of their connection in his mind after a year of its absence. When their minds had first bridged that gap, over stars and planets, it had been a shock to them both—more interesting to him than it was terrifying to her.

_Why is the Force connecting us?_ The question repeats itself in his head, still unanswered all this time later. Part of him hopes she hears it, if she’s still listening, still in his mind. He wonders if she asks herself the same thing, if she still thinks about him at all. The idea of it—of someone thinking about him, not with wrath or malcontent, but with concern, maybe even compassion—

And then, like it always does, the memories of Crait sneak up on him. 

He pulls his head from the seat, leaning forward to examine the controls. The ship’s computer seems to have gone inactive while he was asleep; the controls are dimmed until he taps at one of the viewscreens. When the controls blink to life, his eyes jump to the chronometer first, mentally counting back to see how long he’d been asleep for. 

_Six hours_. Long enough to count as the passing of a standard day. _Which means four days remaining._ Kylo lets out a shaky breath, pushing his hair back from his face with shaky fingers. _And still no plan_.

Well, a hatchling of a plan. A hatchling that’s essentially reliant on the cooperation of the one person in the galaxy that refuses to speak to him.

His stomach rumbles restlessly as he double checks the communications docket—deleting any and all First Order correspondence with a swipe of his finger—and he reaches over to the drawer of foodstuffs without taking his eyes off the viewscreen, tearing open another protein cube and finishing it in just a few bites. He decides to save the polystarch for later, as a poor attempt to ration out his consumables. He re-checks the tracker, ensuring it’s still disabled, then does a status check on the engine, hyperdrive, and navigation systems—he knows they should be working perfectly, since he’s been the one overseeing (and sometimes personally conducting) repairs on the _Silencer_ for the better part of its life. It’s just something to do, something to pass the time, something to distract him from his thoughts.

But they’re all working optimally, nothing needs repairing or tuning, and Kylo is left alone with his thoughts again. He wonders after Rey again, after their shared connection, but something inside him slams down on that before he can dwell on it. 

A budding anger takes its place. 

He wonders absently how he got here. In the _Silencer_ , running away from an empire he was trying to reform, trying to salvage.

The attack was pointless, he decides suddenly, with nothing else productive to think on. 

Useless. 

A small group of higher-ranking officers had known about the illegal activity on Kijimi for months, maybe years, but only when they realized the economic activity there might hinder the First Order’s operations did they choose to act. Did they choose to approach their Supreme Leader, Pryde and Hux leading their little entourage, and petition him to take action on the planet, lead an assault to stamp out any illicit activity in the Thieves’ Quarter and make way for First Order operations there.

And Kylo, of course, could not have said no, at least not there, with every person holding up his shoddy little empire begging him to do otherwise. They could have ended him then and there. So he acquiesced, put together an invasion squad, led the mission personally at the behest of his officers.

But _stop,_ he had thought on the planet, as it happened, as homes and livelihoods were burned and destroyed, as tears streaked through soot-stained faces, as people died in the futile service of his crumbling Order. His hand had risen from his side into the air, as if a wave of his fingers could end the bloodshed for good. _Stop this. This was a mistake. I shouldn't have listened._

But his second mistake—the two Knights of Ren he had chosen to accompany him planetside—had seen his hand raise from their position at his flank, had seen the command on his tongue before he could speak it, make it so. And it was coordinated, the way they had approached him from both sides, forcing his arms down, shaking their heads no. As if it was out of his hands what happened next. As if this had been planned without his knowledge, his approval.

And it had been, he realizes now. It had been a raid _and_ a coup. He’d stopped being Supreme Leader the moment he’d approved the raid, said yes to the pleas of his officers even when the rest of him said no. He’d stopped being Supreme Leader when he’d started fearing his subordinates, what they’d do if he said no.

And when he’d said no, his own Knights had turned against him.

The Force choke had given him some difficulty on the first one, but by the time they were downed, freeing his right arm to grab for the lightsaber at his side, he wasn’t even worrying about the Force, about his connection to it. He’d felt the power of the blade in his right hand and knew that was all he needed. 

With the red light of fire illuminating his periphery, he’d run down the second Knight easily enough, the crossguard piercing his armor and singing the edges of his heart. 

After that, he’d thought he could still command the troopers, call back the attack, force a retreat. And when one trooper had turned to see the Knights downed, Kylo standing singular across the Thieves’ Quarter, they did stop. 

Stopped long enough to turn their blasters away from the hordes of new refugees, and onto him. 

The first few had been easy enough to deflect through the Force, even if the surprise had caught him off guard. All Kylo could do was turn to run, run away from the Quarter and towards the surrounding forest, where his only chance at escape lay waiting. If he stayed on the planet, the First Order would take him back, would—

A sharp burst of pain had stopped that train of thought, piercing the back of his calf and traveling all the way up to his core, downing him momentarily. He had fallen face first, his arms coming out in front of him inches before his nose hit the ground. Still, his hands only cushioned the fall, and as the next wave of pain crashed over him, he had let his cheek hit the dirt, if only for a moment. He had wondered if he could lay there, let them take him shoot him dead, or pick him up and take him away.

And yet, when the footsteps had gotten closer, louder, he had forced himself up, as if a part of his mind wasn’t going to allow that possibility to be explored. He had taken one step, then another, and just when one of the troopers pursuing him had gotten too close, his lightsaber was out, mowing him down, and he had begun running in earnest again.

He still doesn’t know what had fueled him, in those last moments, what kept him moving forward, running towards the forest with a bad leg and a dwindling chance of survival. He had never really been invested in the longevity of his own life after Crait, not until that moment. But somehow he had known that he wasn’t going to let himself end there, killed by the people he had surrounded himself with by choice. That wasn’t going to happen.

He had grown a certain kind of fondness for his _Silencer_ over the years, a sleek little starfighter befitting his expertise in flying. It was a little too big, a little too obsequious, but in that moment Kylo had never been so happy to see the pointed black wings of the ship shining through the naked trees. 

And now here he was, that fondness quickly evaporating as the cockpit grew smaller with each passing hour, his patience running thinner. He couldn’t run forever, couldn’t ignore the time that was running out. _Five days to live, or five days to die_ , his mind repeats to him. He nearly scowls at the reminder.

He can’t sleep, can’t make the time disappear, so he watches the tunnel of hyperspace reaching out in front of him, the endless swirl of stars, and imagines finding Rey at the end of it. If he can’t have her in this life, if she can’t bridge that gap for the both of them, he can at least paint a dozen different endings for them, in bright, happy shades he’s never known.

He can at least have her in his daydreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow's chapter will be longer/juicier I promise xo


	3. Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note the change in rating/tags!

The image in the viewport hasn’t changed in 72 standard hours: a warping starfield, bright blues and stark blacks and whites melting into one another to create the vortex of hyperspace. It moves evenly, in a smooth circular tunnel, and Kylo often finds himself staring into it for hours. 

A timer dings, one he’d set up the night before, signaling time to eat. He figured this would be the best way to pace himself; his height and weight are above average for a person of his age, and so the consumables are just enough to keep him alive, not near enough to satisfy. If he eats when he’s hungry, the foodstuffs would be gone long before his five days were up. 

Kylo stares down that tunnel of hyperspace now, mixing the polystarch with a few drops of water on a sleek metal plate he’d found under the consumables tray. He only averts his eyes to watch the water seemingly fall away while the bread rises, forming a perfect gray ball. Kylo tries not to grimace as he picks apart one bite, then two. Once he’s eating, though, his stomach is reminded that it’s hungry, that food, albeit bland polystarch, is sorely welcomed, and the bread is gone in a matter of seconds. He’s pressing his index finger to the plate, picking up every crumb he can find and sucking it off the pad of his thumb, wondering how long it’s been since he’s felt hunger. 

Well, his own hunger. It lives as a constant reminder in the shared memories Rey has shown him. 

Unbidden, memories of hands touching under the glow of a campfire surge back into the forefront of his mind. His fingers—the same fingers he was currently scrounging calories off of—had barely grazed hers, and the next instant his eyelids were painted with memories of her past: the longing, the loneliness, and the hunger, too. Always the hunger. So many sordid memories of making daily portions last weeks, months, treasuring basic food components like vegmeat as if it were a delicacy. 

He’d cried for her then. Cried for the terrible life she’d lived, the only life she’d ever known. If he thought too much about it, even now, he could cry again. 

But, as if to dispel that, he remembers their more recent interactions, too. Crait returns to him. The door of his father’s ship shutting on him, golden dice fading on his gloves. The first time he’d seen her again, she’d appeared in his quarters on the _Finalizer_ , working on some mechanical repair and pointedly ignoring him. He’d followed suit, pretending like she wasn’t there, even when bits and pieces of a lazy, halfhearted conversation with who he could only guess was Chewbacca filtered through the bond to him. It was then he’d realized that they were working on the _Falcon_. It had surprised him at first, how much that small epiphany hurt him, and his lips had pursed and unpursed as he scrambled for something to say to her, something to shout, to throw, anything to make _this_ feel better. 

To his surprising relief, the bond had evaporated mere minutes later, and he had found himself collapsing into his own abject sorrow, letting it roll over him in waves.

But this competition of mutual ignorance didn’t last long; Kylo had given easily enough. Eventually, when he’d feel the bond begin to form, he wouldn’t stop it, was so starved of interaction, unpleasant or otherwise, that he’d let her materialize, let himself be ignored as he felt her presence, sometimes openly watching her. 

It didn’t take long for him to break. He’d spoken to her on the fifth or sixth go of this, pleading for her to talk to him, to acknowledge him, to say anything, but he’d only been met with stony silence. He hadn’t known what to say, what to do, to make her turn around, to make her respond to him. To make her feel the way he felt.

He still doesn’t.

Eventually, Rey must have mastered the art of constructing solid mental defenses, because he’d stopped seeing her apparitions on the _Finalizer_. It was something Kylo didn’t realize he would miss before it was gone. Even in the days before Kijimi, before he’d fled, he’d still looked for her everywhere, expecting to see her standing at the end of the hall when he would round a corner, or hiding in the shadows of the bridge when he would arrive at central command each day. When he had stopped expecting her, that had only seemed to make things worse. So instead, he’d clung to the idea that she would still appear to him, that she would want to make things right.

It had made that faint brush against his consciousness, on the first day he’d been on the _Silencer_ , in hyperspace, that much more painful. That much more _hopeful_. 

Now, with nothing else to do to pass the time, to while away the hours, he finally allows himself the pleasure of dwelling on her. He skips over the painful memories, the ones where he makes an appearance, and remembers those few snapshots of time when he had shoved away his own pain to watch her appear to him through the bond, the people around her making her happy, making her smile. He realizes now that she’d never smiled around him—never. Only tears, and anger, and blaster shots, but towards the end, a disjointed kind of concern. Maybe hope, for him and for her.

But the few memories he treasures of her, after Crait, through the bond, she’s happy. He’d often heard the voice of Poe Dameron, a ghost from his own childhood, or that traitorous stormtrooper—though now, as a fellow runaway from the First Order, he supposes he can’t judge—accompanying those memories, giving Rey a reason to be happy.

Not all of the memories are pleasant, though—in the times that he had caught her alone, with her own thoughts, she had been sad. Sometimes crying. He just hadn’t known what to say, because he had been just as miserable, if not better at hiding it. How can the wounded comfort the wounded? How can the blind lead the blind?

He remembers watching her train, too, silently admiring the way her body moved through different lightsaber forms. He could tell she was attempting to unlearn all the shoddy, patchwork fighting forms she’d developed as an orphan with a quarterstaff on an unforgiving world, could recognize the new movements as they had been taught to him, in another life. He’d had to resist the urge to reach out, partly to correct her mistakes, to show her where the Jedi forms were right and where they were wrong.

But that train of thought led to ideas of his oversized hands dwarfing her muscular shoulders, her biceps, showing her _physically_ how to execute the form, hold the stance. His fingers splaying over her torso, shirt sticking to her skin with sweat. 

Ideas he couldn’t let himself entertain then.

Now, as he sits in the cockpit of the _Silencer_ , nothing but the endless vortex of hyperspace to occupy his mind, he feels a twitch in the seam of his pants, and bites his lip.

When his hand dips under the waistband, he closes her eyes, and thinks of the soft lilt of her accented voice, asking if this is okay.

When his fingers close around his base, he imagines her own fingers, small and delicate, holding him steady.

When they run up the length of him, ending at the tip of his head, he imagines her bending down to close her lips around the top of him, and shudders against the seat.

His strokes are soft at first, subtle, as if he’s merely playing with the idea of thinking of her. He remembers her training, wisps of hair escaping her three buns as she whirls a quarterstaff, then a repaired lightsaber, around her head, down from shoulder to hip in a defiant stance. He remembers her smiling—intentionally blocking out any memory of someone else’s voice accompanying that smile—remembers her laughing at a joke he’ll never hear, never remember. His breaths grow more shallow, his strokes more fervent, more desperate. 

He doesn’t actively summon the memory of her on Ahch-To, a blanket clasped tightly around her shoulders, wet and shuddering, confiding in him, feeling _alone_. The feeling of her fingers, just barely brushing against his, painted in the warm shades of firelight, despite appearing to him on the cool, stark blues and grays of the _Supremacy._

But it comes to him all the same.

And then, the throne room, in shades of red. Her saying his name, begging him to turn, telling his former master that _he underestimates Ben Solo, and me_. Saving his life, after shedding all that blood, tossing him his grandfather’s lightsaber.

His name in her mouth echoes thorugh his mind in waves.

_Ben._

_Ben._

One more pull against himself, and then his release is fast, hot, spilling to the ground as his breath comes in short, shallow waves, lips parted but wet.

And when he finally blinks his eyes open, taking stock of what he’s done, he swears he can feel her watching, just out of the corner of his eyes.

But when he turns around to see her, she’s already disappeared.


	4. Day Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (tw: brief mention of suicide. the word is not included, it's more of an abstract alluding to ending one's life. if you want to avoid, just skip the paragraph that starts with "Tomorrow’s his last day of food.")  
> also im really sorry with the lateness of this upload/shortness of the chapter. ive had an awful headache for most of today but i still wanted to stick to the writing schedule ive created. thanks for sticking with me :) ps ill respond to the rest of the comments once i finish this story tomorrow

He’s tired.

Kylo can’t remember the last time he’s ever felt this tired.

He spends every minute of every day either eating or sleeping, and yet every bone in his body seems to ache. He thought he’d stop feeling trapped in the cockpit of the _Silencer_ a long time ago, but hours later it’s still a prison, still a damnation, still a reminder that he’s no closer to a plan than he was on Kijimi. 

He’s trashed the consumables drawer. It had been in a moment of physical and emotional weakness, after waking from a nightmare of Rey’s lightsaber, buried in his ribs, in a cold sweat. He had been hungry, had concluded in that weakness that all hope was lost, and so he hadn’t held back, hadn’t hesitated when he’d reached for one protein cube, then another, and another. 

Now, he separates half of a polystarch ball into quarters, scraping the crumbs off of the plate with the pad of his finger as he takes his time with the few calories he has left. 

His stomach still growls, his eyes feeling heavy. The starfighter’s viewport casts him in shades of blue, his skin still pale against the light. He sighs, carding a hand through his hair.

He’s at the end of his rope.

Tomorrow’s his last day of food. He’ll wake up, pick at his last quarter of polystarch, and then what? Wait until he starves? Activate the _Silencer_ ’s self-destruct mechanism to save himself the pain? Waiting any longer is futile.

He’s beyond desperate. He’s hopeless. He has nothing to lose.

So he doesn’t hesitate reaching out.

Rey’s mental defenses are strong, but they’re not impenetrable. If Kylo concentrates, sapping what little strength he has, he can get through to her.

_Rey_.

_Please._

_I know you’ve been here—you’ve been in my head. Like I’m in yours. Please._

He’s met with cold silence at first, though he knows she’s heard him. She’s concealing herself well.

Then, he can feel her sigh through the bond—his own lungs expanding and collapsing—and then she’s suddenly right in front of him, leaning against the main control panel, legs crossing at the ankle, in what little room the cockpit affords. She’s cleanly dressed, well-rested, her skin clear and hair combed back. Every movement seems practiced, every inch of space she occupies a testament to her strength, and her restraint.

The breath of relief he exhales has the weight of days on it. _Thank you_ , he thinks, though he has the decency to keep that to himself, not letting the words escape down the bond to her. 

“You’re still alive.” She sounds smug, arms crossed over her chest.

He swallows. “Yes.” _Barely_.

“What happened?” It’s less of a question and more of a demand.

“Mutiny.” He doesn’t bother elaborating. “I escaped. But I’m out of food, out of options. If I land now, on a planet I don’t know, stormtroopers will have me in custody before I can get back on my feet.”

“So you’re dead.” The words are deadpanned, but she says them without meeting his eyes, the only indication that she has even a sliver of compassion for him.

“Not yet.” It’s a glimmer of hope, buried deep enough inside him that he didn’t know he had it until now. “My heart’s still beating.”

“Do you have a plan?” Her eyebrows furrow when she says this, when she meets his eyes again. 

He knows she knows what he’s asking, but she’s feigning ignorance, forcing him to say the words himself. 

He hesitates, eyes trained on her, lips pursing and unpursing. “Please, Rey.” He swallows. “Help me.”

The look between them lasts a lifetime. Neither of them says a word, neither of them even moves. A year of shared history passes between their gaze, over the stars and planets that separate them. 

He can’t remember how many times she’d pleaded with him, or him with her. But he remembers an instant of time where she had been at his mercy—only an instant. And then, on the _Finalizer_ , she’d cracked him open like an egg, found the crux of his existence, the part of him he’d seemed to crystallize in amber, untouchable to no one but him. Him, and then her.

It’s something he’ll never be able to shed. It’s a part of him. But now, he thinks that maybe instead of running away from it, he can learn to live with it.

Live with it, with someone like her.

She sighs again, that same expand and collapse he feels in himself, and turns around to face the control panel. He doesn’t realize that she can see it too—can even use it, from so many klicks away—until she starts punching in a set of coordinates. The hyperdrive turns green, calculating its new destination.

She turns her head over her shoulder, to meet his eyes again. “You’ll be here in twelve standard hours. Can you wait that long?”

He can only nod.

“Good.” When she turns back around to press the lever, the engine hums beneath him, and then the coordinates are set. She pauses on the controls, hands hovering, lips parting, as if she has something else to say.

But then, with a sharp exhale, she cuts off the bond, leaving him alone again, and he feels a rush of relief, of fear, of hope.

_Twelve standard hours._

And when Kylo looks back out at his view of hyperspace again, it doesn’t fill him with dread or disgust anymore. He knows it never will again.


End file.
